Trump orders US to withdraw from World Health Organization

Ike Swetlitz, Bloomberg News on Jan 20, 2025

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. to withdraw from the World Health Organization, a decision that would cut off one of the international aid and disease response group’s largest funding sources.

The order, which was among a flurry of executive actions Trump signed Monday in the Oval Office, says the “WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments,” according to the White House website.

“World Health ripped us off,” Trump said Monday. “Everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore.”

The Geneva-based WHO plays a pivotal role in battling global health threats, focusing on infectious diseases as well as humanitarian crises and chronic health conditions, like cancer and heart diseases. A U.S. exit could leave it short of critical funding. During the 2024-25 budget cycle, U.S. contributions came to $662 million, or 19% of the agency’s total revenue, according to the WHO.

Toward the end of his first term, Trump tried to pull the U.S. out of the international health body, saying that it deferred too much to the Chinese government in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak and didn’t act quickly enough to contain the disease. The move was widely criticized by both health advocates and Democratic lawmakers, who called it a political maneuver aimed at shifting blame for the administration’s disastrous response to the pandemic.

The order also says the future transfer of any U.S. Government funds, support or resources to the WHO should be paused and the director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy “shall review, rescind and replace the 2024 U.S. Global Health Security Strategy as soon as practicable.”

When it became a WHO member in 1948, the U.S. decided that a withdrawal would be preceded by a one-year notice period and full payment of financial obligations. President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s effort upon taking office in January 2021, before the notice period expired.

Whether the American president has the authority to exit the WHO without congressional approval is unclear, according to a 2020 Congressional Research Service report. Still, the chances that the Republican-controlled Congress would block Trump’s move appear small.

A U.S. departure would strike a severe blow to the agency that played a key role in the eradication of smallpox worldwide, and continues to fight contagious diseases such as HIV and polio. The WHO is currently responding to health emergencies including outbreaks of cholera, dengue, mpox and Marburg virus.

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(With assistance from Josh Wingrove and Antonia Mufarech.)